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 Hanoi, Vietnam. October 2010
Apparently, it takes about a third of a century for the remains of a B-52 that fell into a lake after being shot down to turn into an interesting piece of municipal sculpture in a nice part of town.  Okay… October 28th, 2010 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Karl Rove, a leading advisor for George W. Bush and therefore one of the people who made the Obama presidency possible, has launched another attack on Sarah Palin. If I were her, I would be grinning from ear to ear. October 27th, 2010 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Incoming from Sam Bowman of the Cobden Centre (and also the Research Manager and Blogmeister at the Adam Smith Institute – most recent blog posting here):
That event has already been flagged up (although somewhat imperfectly!) here. The Cobden Centre head honchos are hoping for a good-to-bursting type turnout, to keep the buzz they are already creating buzzing along and buzzier. So if you can just show up, do. No compelling need to listen to everything that carefully, or not first time around, because unless things go badly wrong the event will be recorded. I will be going, and I expect to learn a lot. And there’s more:
One of the things I most like about the Cobden Centre is how they cooperate so enthusiastically and helpfully with other groups which have broadly (rather than merely narrowly) similar agendas, that latter event being typical of this mind-fix. October 27th, 2010 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
It may be surprising to present-day readers to think that it was once thought a “soft option” to transport a convicted criminal to a colony such as Australia’s Botany Bay. But as this letter shows, that is what some influential people thought at the time:
Sydney Smith, Whig clergyman and wit, as quoted in Robert Peel, by Douglas Hurd, page 78. As an aside, Peel was involved in two issues – re-connecting bank notes to bullion, and the 1844 Bank Charter Act – that have enduring relevance to our own time. Hurd’s biography is very readable and has a nice tone to it; in my view, however, Norman Gash’s study remains the definitive one. October 27th, 2010 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
Surfing on the blogs, I came across this item that I have not seen anywhere else. Israel has, potentially, some pretty handy oil resources. Wow, better tell Halliburton & all those nasty right-wing neocons and advise them to cook up some fake reason for invading the place… This article has more. October 26th, 2010 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
(Seriously, apart from the mobile phone, is there any invention that is more empowering for people in poor countries than the motorcycle?) – Michael Jennings parenthesises during the early stages of a piece about taxis the world over and about taxis in Vietnam in particular. Transport Blog has been in a coma of late, but it is now showing definite signs of renewed life. October 26th, 2010 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
This news story, if it turns out to be accurate, should cheer up the retailers of booze at airports. October 26th, 2010 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Of course Peregrine Worsthorne is sane. He is just a typical example of the sort of châteaux bottled shit that floats at certain rarefied levels of British society exuding a miasma of highly articulate ignorance from every orifice.” – Our own Perry de Havilland, writing in response to my less-than-awestruck view of Worsthorne, an ageing Tory paternalist. October 25th, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Paris, France.
October 25th, 2010 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Initially, when I saw the article, I wondered what on earth the editorial honchos at the Spectator Coffee House blog were doing in allowing this piece of invective to be published about the Tea Party movement in the US. But maybe those guys are actually being very smart, since the article is so bad, so unhinged, that it bears out the truth of what this Daily Telegraph columnist argues, which is that a large chunk of liberal (in the US sense) opinion is in total denial about what the Tea Party movement is about. It is just not within their mental frame of reference to comprehend ordinary voters rebelling about having to pay higher taxes for higher spending. (“But darling, how can the little people be so ungrateful?”). The Coffee House article tries to dismiss the TP movement is nothing more than a front for religious extremism. Now I don’t particularly care for religion and as regulars will know, I tend to regard the separation of church and state as being one of the good things about the US, although the idea of such separation is not explicitly called for in the US Constitution. But what the author of the Spectator Coffee House piece does not ask is this: if some of the Tea Partiers are playing fast and loose with American history, then are not the supporters of Mr Obama, and the bailouts, and the money printing of the Fed, also taking liberties with the intentions of the Founders? And that, surely, is what this is all about. The anger that is felt across the US among ordinary people is that their country is being bent out of shape by a group of people who hold them in contempt. October 25th, 2010 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
When I attack the concept of ‘Biodiversity’ – and note the inverted commas, that’s kind of key – I’m not voting, as the eco-fascist would-be suicide bomber James Lee so touchingly put it, against “The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.” What I’m railing against is the way a noble-seeming concept has been subverted by the watermelons of the green movement in exactly the same way as “Climate change” has and with precisely the same aims: to extend the powers of government; to raise taxes; to weaken the capitalist system; to curtail personal freedom; to redistribute income; to bring ever-closer the advent of an eco-fascist New World Order. I’ve got nothing against biodiversity. But I’ve an awful lot against “Biodiversity.” – Delingpole, having done so much damage to the last Big Green Thing (see posting below), turns his guns onto the next one. But will Greenery of any kind now be trusted enough to serve as the next big excuse for global statism? October 24th, 2010 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
Do you have seven and a half minutes to spare out of your crowded, creative, busy life? I recommend that you find it, and watch this bit of video, now conveniently viewable at Bishop Hill, this video being … well, see the title of this posting. Of it, the good Bishop says:
Me neither. It’s as good a short summary of the whole Hockey Stick furore (Bishop Hill’s book about it all being a much longer version of the same story), what it is, why it matters, and so on, as you could hope to find. The content of this snatch of video is impressive, of course. But I especially love McKitrick’s calm tone of voice and measured manner. How those climate warmists must hate the internet. They’re still at it, by the way. October 24th, 2010 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
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